12 July 2013

2013 Style In Kanban Task Management Add-on For Outlook

The new features in today's update of the Kanban Task Manager Outlook version have already been added to the SharePoint version. But the Outlook version is first with the new style, adapted to the Microsoft 2013 style. I hope you like the new logo as much as I do!

A kanban board in OutlookKanban Task Manager uses the traditional kanban board idea and adapts it to modern technologies. With a kanban board in Outlook or SharePoint you will achieve many advantages that a physical board cannot give, and you get rid of the disadvantages of using cards.

The Kanban Task Manager "cards" are never dropped on the floor or lost because someone took them away to make a note. They stay on the board for as long as you want them to, and you can easily drag them from one phase to another.

Visualized tasks in two sizes
In the new version of Kanban Task Manager for Outlook you can get the visualized tasks in two sizes. Groups with many tasks may prefer smaller "cards" to get room for more of them on the "board" - the computer screen - without scrolling. Other groups may prefer the bigger size, that lets you see a bit more of the task information without opening the task.

More filter options
In earlier versions of Kanban Task Manager you could filter tasks by project or responsible, which of course was a big step forward compared to the physical board. However, Community Members have asked for a third filter option, priority, so now this alternative has been added to Kanban Task Manager.

You can combine the three filtering options project, responsible and priority as you wish. You can for example select to show only high priority tasks for all responsibles on one project or to show one project only but all responsibles and priorities.

Show priority on task
The update Kanban Task Manager also gives the option to display the priority value on the visualized tasks. Just check a box in the settings and you will see the priority on the task "card".

Win 8 style
Performance and features are most important, but we also want the kalmstrom.com applications to look good and fit well into the Microsoft products we build on. Therefore we have now left the shadows and rounded corners of earlier versions and given the tasks the Windows 8 style you see in the images above.New colors
With version 2013 Microsoft has left the yellow color that has distinguished Outlook for such a long time and replaced it with blue, so we wanted to change the Kanban Task Manager icon accordingly. We also changed the red letters in the logo into blue, which gave us the clean an nice logotype you see in the beginning of this blog post. We will update all product graphics to the 2013 style, so this is just the first.

Upgrade or tryCommunity Members who are already using Kanban Task Manager are welcome to upgrade their installations. Upgrades are always included in the subscription, just like the support.